Why are the things I don't believe so persistent?

Coming in from the cold, something deep inside of me hurts. Where have I been? 

I went out running. The ground is under me, but I’m still not there and don't know how to land. It's a feeling I hate... the sensation of being precisely un-coordinated from footfall turning over to footfall, that my beat is off one half a measure, only ever so slightly noticeable from the inside.

I ran slowly, listening to podcasts tell the same story over and over. I ran slowly and wondered what the big fuss was all about. I ran slowly, going through the motions responsibly like the experts who say, relentlessly, that you have to be running slow 80% of the time. So I run slowly, uninspired with just enough background noise to distract me from myself, my feet dumb blocks transferring impact up the biomechanical chain. I used to think this was magic, but that is no longer true.  

If it is, I can't remember. I don’t know what it is… what it’s been... maybe that I’ve become frail since I was last here on the ground, that it’ll hurt, tear, break, become misaligned from the under-activated muscles to the stress inflexible tendons, that they can’t do it. They’re de-conditioned. They’re not warm enough, not long enough, strong enough, young enough.  

I switch podcast to playlist, curve uphill following the road and kick up to tempo because fuck the experts. It's a long hill, and my heart is pounding all the way to the barrier of skin until I break away like a dream about running. The more I run, the more I become into running. And I remembered something. I felt it. I ran it down and let it devour me. It was spiritual. It was fucking holy. 

When the door closed behind me, I burst into tears and cried into my crumpled sweaty jacket. I cried myself to quiet extinction, until my eyelids pulsing bring me back to the contour of my body. When I move, it's hyper-real. I exist my way over to the shower, into clean clothes, into the routine of living. But I don't know what the fuck is going on? Who am I being, have I been, and what did I believe that got me here? Did I let it in or let it out? I don't know, but I think I'd forgotten something essential, and that the only way to remember is to chase it down with all the brutal will I can muster.